Changes

“No book is really worth reading at the age of ten which is not equally – and often far more – worth reading at the age of fifty and beyond.”

― C.S. Lewis

For a long time, I shut up about my condition, not only because I was in denial phase and did not come to terms yet with the seriousness of the situation but also because I don’t want to saddle other people with my burden. Even in real life, I don’t talk about it, not even to my family, or my children; it’s difficult but I now have to admit that I am sick and I am ashamed of it.

I am ashamed of what I have become. This isn’t me anymore. I can hardly recognize myself.

When my husband met me for the first time he thought I was twenty-two years old and larger than life. I was thirty-seven and was trying to get over twenty years of abusive nightmarish relationship but like he said: there are no signs of it, not in the way I deal with people and life in general. Despite everything that I’ve been through I managed to keep my core intact.

But I never expected to be ill. Not like this. A couple of years ago, I was diagnosed with an auto-immune disease and among its symptoms is RA. You can look it up on the internet or google it, save me time and space explaining a very complicated matter to you and I’m not sure you will understand. People often misunderstood illnesses that don’t show on the outside. They think it is not serious or we are just pretending. Believe you me, I will gladly exchange my condition with anyone without a second thought.

To top it all I have acervical hernia – a cervical herniated disc is diagnosed when the inner core of a disc in the neck herniates, or leaks out of the disc, and presses on an adjacent nerve root – and a lumbar hernia (Spinal disc herniation/slipped disc) I have Ulcerative colitis (Colitis ulcerosa, UC) too. There’s a lot more but they are just symptoms brought by the disease. Sideshows, they say.

The pain I have already learned to live with it (though the consequences is enormous, like not being able to sleep, sit or lie down and being constantly tired, puking all the time but gaining weight at the same time) but what it does with my brain, that is what I have difficulties dealing with.

I wonder if you are familiar with Apraxia and Agnosia? Well, I’m experiencing that. The constant foggy state of my brain, the confusion, the inability to express myself and deal with simple everyday tasks like dressing up and personal hygiene are things that are very difficult for me to accept and live with. I’m becoming a stranger to myself.

I am writing this because I used to be smart, intelligent they say. Independent, a leader, creative trouble-shooter logical, daring adventurer wanderer an artist and a writer. I am less of that now. My main concern is how to get up in the morning and remain standing throughout the day. I want to stay independent as long as possible. I don’t want to be a trouble for anyone. I know it will happen one day, sooner than expected and approaching faster than I wish but I’m a stubborn woman; I held the years at bay successfully, I can do this too. Hopefully.

So, if you notice that the quality of my writings changes, that it’s not the way it is used to be, not anymore sharp or cohesive; I hope you give me a break because you understand for you know the reasons why…

I am a machine past my prime. My components are rusty and urgently need to be replaced. My wiring doesn’t work anymore the way it supposed to be. There is something wrong in the main compartment but I want you to remember me like I was in the beginning, the way I used to be…

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Just a thought

THE PAINT IN CHURCHES GETS WORN AWAY QUICKER THAN IN OTHER BUILDINGS. I THINK IT’S THE FRICTION OF THE SOULS. THEY GRIND THEMSELVES AGAINST THE CEILINGS AND WALLS.

IF I COULD REACH FOR SOMETHING BRILLIANT, THAT WOULD BE THE HOME WHICH BEEN DENIED TO ME AND THE PRESENCE OF THE PEACE I'VE NEVER KNOWN...

Why I write

I write to exorcise some ghosts (there are plenty) to make peace with my past, to keep sane, to let skeletons out the closet and occasionally let them dance naked, to vent. I write because I don’t know any better.

Healology

“Growing up, I always had a soldier mentality. As a kid I wanted to be a soldier, a fighter pilot, a covert agent, professions that require a great deal of bravery and risk and putting oneself in grave danger in order to complete the mission. Even though I did not become all those things, and unless my predisposition, in its youngest years, already had me leaning towards them, the interest that was there still shaped my philosophies. To this day I honor risk and sacrifice for the good of others – my views on life and love are heavily influenced by this.”

― Criss Jami

Musing

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

“I have this strange feeling that I’m not myself anymore. It’s hard to put into words, but I guess it’s like I was fast asleep, and someone came, disassembled me, and hurriedly put me back together again. That sort of feeling.”

- Haruki Murakami

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeoning of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.

what are you afraid of?

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The art of dancing

Kindred Spirits

Introversion

“...I also believe that introversion is my greatest strength. I have such a strong inner life that I’m never bored and only occasionally lonely. No matter what mayhem is happening around me, I know I can always turn inward.”

what i’ve been doing…

We were born to be free, to expand our horizons by going where we have never gone before, and not to hang out in the relative comfort and safety of the nest, the known. There is a place within us that is courageous beyond our human understanding; it yearns to explore beyond the boundaries of our daily life.

- Dennis Merritt Jones

Once I had started my solitude, I realized anew that it was easy for me to become accustomed to this state and that the most effortless existence for me was in fact in one in which I was not obliged to speak to anyone. My fretful attitude to life left me. Each dead day had its charm.

- Yukio Mishima

It well may be,
That we will never meet again,
In this lifetime.
So let me say before we part,
So much of me,
Is made of what I learned from you.
You’ll be with me,
Like a handprint on my heart.
And now whatever way our stories end,
I know you have re-written mine,
By being part of my life…

I'm Michelle. This is my blog. I write about women and fatness, expound upon semi-coherent thoughts I have in the middle of the night, and offer tough love to those in whom I am disappointed; they are legion.